Those little clips that hold the window winders on are called Jesus clips.They're called that because usually when you try to get them out they go 'ping' and disappear. which prompts you to call their name in a loud voice.

yeah its kinda wierd that they didnt fix these things in japan. i read ur build up on GrandJDM (RIP ) the car looked great compared to some of the other alternative cars u showed but i guess all the little problems add up to alot things.

I was going to coat the headers with POR15 Black Velvet hi temp paint, but beforehand I applied Metal Ready to etch the metal surface for a better bond with the Black Velvet. This isn't necessary according to the instructions since my headers were abrasive blasted anyway, but the guy who sold me the POR15 recommended it.

Hang it up for painting...

Black Velvet is a very thick, honey-like coating, so it goes on quite thick and glossy

But the next day it dries to a matt finish.

I have to give it 24hrs between coats, and so tonight it'll get a second coat.

yeah its kinda wierd that they didnt fix these things in japan. i read ur build up on GrandJDM (RIP ) the car looked great compared to some of the other alternative cars u showed but i guess all the little problems add up to alot things.

Well...it's so hard to say, isn't it? Since buying my car I've seen many others in Japan which are a lot worse.

There are great ones I've seen too but not at the same price...but so far we haven't really re-done any of the original JDM resto (although eventually I think I will...) it's more like they stopped short of finishing the job and now it's up to me to get it over the line

31GUN wrote:

You're kidding!That brown goop came out that grey colour?Or am I missing a step here?

Hooks

I think it's a question of lighting...it looks grey but is actually matt black, and when it was wet, it looked brown but it was actually gloss black. But yeah I just washed it with Metal Ready, then gave it a rinse, and when it was dry I gave it one coat of Black Velvet.

Those little clips that hold the window winders on are called Jesus clips.They're called that because usually when you try to get them out they go 'ping' and disappear. which prompts you to call their name in a loud voice.

I'm a font of information.

Hooks

Jesus clips!

I used this hook thingy that is on my Swiss Army knife that worked pretty well.

Ok, the latest addition to the project are a new set of Watanabes, and here's why.

The front pair of watanabes that came with the car are cracked. Quite a few of the spokes have a little fracture right in this same spot.

This actually isn't the first set of Watanabes which have cracked on me. The set I had on the MX5 did it too, but those were the "race only" magnesium ones, and at the time I thought that hey, it figures.

But it would seem that it happens to the aluminium ones too. I don't know if it's a difference in the castings between production years, or if it's core shift from poor quality control, but you can see that the cracked wheel on the right is a bit thinner in the casting than the new one on the left. The new wheel is about 1.5mm thicker-walled in the spoke.

The rear pair seem to be ok. The front pair are the "A" model eight-spoke Watanabe, which is the most common kind. The rears are the "R" model, which are generally only in much wider sizes, and the spoke is a lot thicker at the spot where the A's crack.

Having to get new wheels was a dark cloud with a silver lining though. The front cracked wheels are 14x7 +8 offset, which wasn't enough dish/offset to fill out the flares at the front, so the previous owner fitted these 25mm thick KICS spacers.

Say what you like about spacers, but the key thing to me, is that a 25mm spacer is a wasted opportunity to fit wheels with 25mm more dish!

So the new wheels are 14x7.5 -3, which means they stick out 11mm more than the old ones did.

...and without the spacer in place, the new wheels will stick out 12mm less than the old ones did with the spacer. Since the old wheels actually protruded past the flare, I think these new ones will be a good compromise.

The other thing I wanted to do was spruce up the centre console a little, with its torn and old shift gaiter.

The gaiter is vinyl, which is clipped to the plastichrome trim surround.

...which is sadly broken (and I couldn't find a new one in Japan)

I did however, managed to track down a new shift gaiter...

And clipped in place, with the plastichrome surround reinforced with some tape, it doesn't look too bad...I'll definitely be on the lookout for a new trim surround the next time I'm in Japan tho

Here's another weird Hako-ism....the centre console is only bolted down at the front. At the back, there is no facility to screw it down to the tunnel at all. So when you rest your arm on the console it does feel quite wobbly.

So they have these in Japan, which are springs which tie the console down to this convenient little hole in the seat mount. Works brilliantly, I'm not sure if it's a factory solution or an aftermarket one though. Pretty expensive little springs at $15ea

At the moment, a pair of the new wheels are being refinished in gold to match the rear wheels, and the good samaritan who's offering me the new inlet manifold and I keep missing each other. It'll happen soon though, and then the manifold can be ported out to match the head and we'll be in business again.

I like how you used the old rim. As for the cracking it definitely is the wall thickness that is at play there cause of the less metal you have the more stress it will have on it to do things like crack and such.

That spacer has given me some ideas for my 76 Subaru to make it so I have more selection for sizes of rims hmmmmmm.

As for the center console why not go around to the machine shops in your area and see if one of them can make a new one out of aluminum or even if you can afford it Stainless? If you need someone to design it let me know and I can design it in mastercam as long as I get the measurements for it and then you can take it to a machine shop that has a cnc mill and mastercam (if they use something else just let me know and I can convert it to their CAM programs file structure)

As for the center console why not go around to the machine shops in your area and see if one of them can make a new one out of aluminum or even if you can afford it Stainless? If you need someone to design it let me know and I can design it in mastercam as long as I get the measurements for it and then you can take it to a machine shop that has a cnc mill and mastercam (if they use something else just let me know and I can convert it to their CAM programs file structure)

Thanks for the kind offer but I was thinking that the trim surround is probably a little too complex to be made out of billet, it has to have that channel so that the gaiter can clip to it.

well if you have looked at the drawing thread you would notice that it isn't as complex as you think lol, if you were in the states I would just say send it to me and also material and I would be able to make it.

Been a bit busy, so haven't had much time to spend on the car, but things have been progressing...

First thing is that the replacement front wheels have been painted to match the rears.

When I got the new wheels, they had charcoal centres with a polished rim, and the decision was whether to polish the rears to match the fronts.....but I thought that polished was maybe too blingy for this sort of car, so for the fronts I went for a brushed look, like the rears.

The new ones look great (courtesy of Neale Wheels) and are noticeably dishier than the old cracked ones.

The other little job I had done was the powdercoat the strut bar mounts. As they came with the car, they were painted red, which I thought was a bit too flashy for a classic car.

Also they had been painted rather poorly a few times, so it was nice to get them sandblasted smooth and coated in black.

Also...remember the broken gearknob?

Anyway, I had a close look at it and realised that it was wrongly installed. The gearlever was only screwed into the plastic bit and so it's not surprising that the plastic bit broke off. But there was actually a threaded insert that kept going into the wooden bit, so with a bit of fiddling around....voila!

Much better than the temporary supercheapy one, and it would have been a shame to throw it out, since it was a replica GT-R one.

The last thing I did tonight was have a closer look at the dizzy...the rotor looked a little burnt.

The cap was fine, with no signs of tracking...but the thought has occurred to me that maybe the MSD Blaster3 coil is too big for this system....I guess when it's all back together we will see.

As for the rest of the engine, I haven't got my hands on the new inlet manifold yet, and I think maybe this weekend I'll try to go over and grab it.